Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles Federal judges have blocked strict new immigration laws adopted by conservative legislatures in half a dozen states, including a ruling last week that said South Carolina may not set up a "street-level dragnet" to stop and arrest illegal immigrants.

But immigrant rights advocates who have cheered those rulings may soon find their luck has run out as those rulings head for the Supreme Court. Legal experts believe the high court's conservative majority will take a sharply different approach.

So far, lower-court judges have mostly sided with the Obama administration, ruling, as U.S. District Judge Richard M. Gergel did in the South Carolina case, that regulating immigration is the province solely of the federal government, not the states.

"The clear message, from judges across the country, is that the states have overreached," said UC Davis law professor Gabriel Chin.

[...]

John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, said the Supreme Court was likely to look at immigration disputes differently from the lower courts. It is "a peculiar idea," he said, for the federal government to assert that states may not enforce immigration laws within their borders.

The high court said it would hear the Arizona immigration case in April, and Eastman said he expected the justices to divide along the same lines as in the May ruling upholding Arizona's sanctions on employers who hire illegal workers. Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined with Roberts in that case.

Peter Spiro, a law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, says he expected key parts of the Arizona law would be upheld. "As usual, Kennedy will be the decider," he said. "And I think he'll be accommodating of state interests."

A Federal Government that selectively chooses which laws to enforce and which not, at the same time preventing sovereign states from enforcing matters that directly affect them specifically should not stand.

The US Constitution is not a Chinese menu (select one from column A and one from column B). Further, there is a reason why the phrase "Congress shall not...." is so prevalent throughout. Precisely to keep the Federal Government from becoming what it has now become - our enemy.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.

Ratified in 1791, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution embodies the general principles of Federalism in a republican form of government. The Constitution specifies the parameters of authority that may be exercised by the three branches of the federal government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states all powers that are not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, except for those powers that states are constitutionally forbidden from exercising.

Article IV: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”

Arizona should invoke Article IV to force Hussein/Holder to repel the Mexican invasion. Martial Law on the border. It would bring this issue front and center before the nation and probably influence Scotus.

6
posted on 12/29/2011 3:01:00 AM PST
by Jacquerie
(No court will save us from ourselves.)

SINCE WHEN can we expect the court to follow the Constitution?
Remember, now we have a couple of Barry’s nuts and a “wise Latina” to deal with.
The good stuff came in on 5 to 4 votes. It won’t take much to change EVERYTHING.

8
posted on 12/29/2011 3:52:11 AM PST
by Flintlock
(Photo ID for all voting--let out deal rest in peace.)

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